Systems for processing color imagery signals, such as those provided by a high resolution video camera, commonly download digitized imagery signals into a dedicated imagery memory unit, known as a frame store, the contents of which are controllably accessed by a host computer for display on an attendant color display device. Because of the limited data capacity of the signal processing components and associated limited color range of the display device (typically on the order of eight bits per pixel), the original color imagery data output from the camera must be compressed (for example, from an original twenty-four bits per pixel to the eight bits per pixel range of the processor's associated display) in the course of data manipulation (including an color correction or enhancement by the host computer) and display. As a consequence of such compression, however, a significant amount of color information in the original image is lost. Indeed, compression of a twenty-four bits per pixel video image to an eight bit range reduces the color potential of the display image from sixteen million to only two hundred fifty-six. In other words, even though the frame store possesses the full color range of the color imagery representative data, it is accessed through a signal processing mechanism that inherently reduces this color range, so that the color quality of the recreated image is far less than that available from the front end video signal generator.